Spatial omics methods are rapidly transforming life sciences research by enabling scientists to study the molecular characteristics of cells in their native, spatial context. An increasing number of platforms is emerging to enable spatial omics analyses of tissue, focused on analyte classes throughout the gene regulatory cascade - genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics - as well as analytes close to the phenotype like metabolites, lipids and glycans. The main technologies for spatial omics rely on antibody-antigen interactions, sequencing or mass spectrometry. Despite their differences, all of these methods share a number of characteristic properties, most notably their high ability to record information on a large number of analytes of interest from a single slide (also known as multiplexing), ranging anywhere from dozens of analytes for antibody-based methods up to thousands for sequencing or mass spectrometry-based approaches. Lateral resolutions can range from nanometer scale (e.g., IMC, MIBI and microscopy-based approaches like multiplexed immunofluorescence) up to dozens or even hundreds of micrometers (e.g., MALDI & DESI mass spectrometry imaging and probe-based sequencing platforms). The sheer volume of data generated by spatial omics poses major challenges in comprehensively communicating insights to collaborators and other parties. Despite the importance of proper dissemination of scientific results, academic publications are particularly limiting in this regard, as papers typically only support static images of limited size, which are not amenable to displaying high resolution spatial omics data (e.g., gigapixel size or more), nor data spanning a large amount of analytes of (potential) interest. Authors often necessarily resign to incorporating a few figures which showcase small regions of interest for only a handful of analytes, sometimes paired with additional data in supplementary material for interested parties to manually sift through on their own time. We are seeking to improve communication of spatial omics results, by enabling researchers to create interactive web-based reports featuring their insights. In these reports, a predefined selection of analytes and regions of interest can be displayed, which readers can interactively overlay onto high-resolution whole-slide images. Authors can guide readers through their insights, by sequentially highlighting regions or analytes of interest, paired with a written narrative as additional context.

Comprehensively communicating spatial omics insights via interactive web pages

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.